Conventional streetlights include a metal halide, mercury or sodium light bulb. Even though such conventional streetlights light usually include a reflector to project the light towards an area to illuminate, a first drawback of conventional streetlights is that they waste energy since the light bulb illuminates in all direction, even though illumination is only required towards the street. Another drawback of streetlights provided with a light bulb is that they generate a high luminosity right below the bulb which diminishes quickly as the distance from the bulb increases.
A partial solution to these drawbacks has been proposed with the introduction of streetlights 10 provided with a light emitting diode (LEDs) assembly 12. Examples of such streetlights are shown in FIG. 1 of the appended drawings.
The streetlights 10 share the second drawback of the bulb light-based streetlight in that they generate a high luminosity right below the bulb which diminishes quickly as the distance from the bulb increases. Also, with such a light assembly, a high percentage of light is still lost.
Finally, a common drawback of both bulb-based light assemblies and of current LEDs assemblies is that they cause light pollution by providing light where it is not desired.
A streetlight providing a more uniform light distribution is thus desirable.